congress budget agreement. "washington journal" is next. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] host: good morning, and welcome to the "washington journal" on this sunday, march 31, 2013. breaking over the weekend sources close to talks on the legislation say business and labor leaders have reached an agreement on wages for low-scaled workers. a potential break through that could allow senators to unveil legislation on april 8 when the caucus returns from its spring recess. meanwhile the passover and holiday will begin asking all i don't have about the role of religion. should it may a part in olitics?

send us tweet at twitter.com/cspanwj. at your comments facebook.com/c-span and we'll begin with a gallup poll, here's the headline. host: this shows when americans were asked about this 47% said the bible and religion were wrong. 20% said it's a martyr of equal

rights or such things should be left to the personal choice of those involved. also from the pugh forum, here's their poll. host: this is the percentage of folks that favor same-sex marriage, and you can see here white main line protestants that, number going up from 38% in 2001 to 55% supporting same-sex marriage in 2013. catholics, the purple line went from 38% to 48% of support and hen black protestants stayed pretty consultant and white , this is from s,

the pugh forum. we're asking you should religion play a role in politics? whether same-sex marriage or gun legislation, abortion, those sorts of issues or in any issue should religion play a role in politics. on immigration here are the results on immigration. immigrants today they ask strengthen our country or are a burden? if you take a look here, 42% say it strength at any country while 47% said it's a burden.

host: the numbers tries less people go to church. stella, you're our fist republican caller. should religion play a role in politics? caller: i wanted to point out at the d.n.c., they took that ut of their platform, and when they put it back, they booed god. so to me, this is a party

that's godless, as more and more kids are coming up with approval of gay rights and same-sex marriage, they are being indoctrinated from young to accept this new lifestyle, and i think what's happening to our country is a devastation as far as our morals and that type of thing. host: all right. we're talking about whether or not religion should play a role in politics. an author wrote a book and this was found --

host: some other keep findings in this book -- "god is alive and well" by frank new port. he says it's unclear if marriage causes religiousness or if religiousness causes marriage. should religion play a role in politics? we want to get your take on that. continue calling in. gun rights and gun control. take a look at this. from a recent poll. it says here that when you

break it down by religion, religious preference. protect the right to own guns. the total white protestant population, 62% said we need to protect the right to own guns and -- host: milten in phoenix, arizona, democratic caller. caller: how are you doing? i am from phoenix, arizona, and we have an big issue of immigrants coming in. and it's a big issue because it's predominantly all mexicans and a lot of illegal mexicans. i feel that they truly -- we need to go by the law for a lot

of people coming in this country to get a lot of rights and then they bring things here and basically you an american here. if you come to phoenix, arizona, it don't feel like you in america anymore. you're in little mexico. and hey, no -- host: would you consider yourself religious? caller: excuse me? host: would you consider yourself religious? caller: yes. host: do you feel it plays a role in your feelings? caller: yes, but i don't think it should be in politics because it weighs the facts on how people feel about it when you put religion in politics so if you take religion out of it and just take the basic things which you're dealing with you probably will get a different opinion from a lot of people. host: on facebook "no" is

trending. one says never, another, no. another, no, no, no. host: ron, mount vernon, ohio, democratic caller, what do you think, ron? caller: well, i believe religion shouldn't come into play, although there is -- we get some of our values through religious upbringing, so you can't say keep it out completely, but it should never preached from the pulpit as far as political standings. and such. i just think that that's totally wrong. and we need to keep separation of church and state.

host: ron, do you go to church? caller: yes. host: weekly or monthly? caller: weekly. and i have dual membership at two different churches, but i with disagree with oh, a pastor saying -- and i seen this. a pastor, because i've helped at polling, and i've seen people that it comes with -- apparently they can't even -- i don't want to put it -- do their own due diligence to vote that they actually are given from their churches. how they should vote. host: so the influence. you don't think the church or religious groups should have snfls caller: no. host: that was also a poll

takin' by mr. new port at gallup and that's how it broke down -- host: we'll go to daniel, dallas, texas, hi daniel. independent caller. caller: the question as to whether or not should religion play a role in politics. assuming it doesn't already. and of course it plays a role in politics. during the shooting at the ecent elementary school, president obama, himself went and invoked christ's name bring comfort to the families. but he's also intersecting with

the values of the state and the values of other things. one could argonaut to allow religion because it could sily does country to violate things and argue you are combrusing federal dollars to send a chaplain out to a soldier. but you could argue that it's a state that supports a particular religion but then if soldier is denied that then he could argue that it violates his right to have freedom of religion. host: so what do you make of the separation of church and state? caller: well, i think there's more consideration as to what

does that mean? and how does that take part in freems and ways of the united states and people socialized under it have no type of influence on how they vote when they go to the ballot? it seems like it's restricting religion. host: from the website here's a little bit about the separation of church and state, the metaphor and the constitution says separation of church and state is a common metaphor that's equally well recognized.

host: martin in jackson, heights, new york, independent caller. caller: hello. you see the fear of our founding fathers was whatever happens in europe before the united states came into being was that religion dominated. and if you have the majority of religion the minorities of the religion are going to suffer. because whatever majority religion there was in europe at the time, they really -- they abused the minority religions, and this is where we can't have, we must have separation of church. host: why do you think it was

not included in the constitution? congress shall make no law establishing religion or prohibitting the free exercise will have to. caller: we're allowed to exercise our right but we can't allow one religion to dominate over others otherwise we will have abuses before the united abuses - like the before the united states came into being. host: good morning, you're on the air. caller: yes, i think we should have some religion in our politics. but right now all they are doing is fighting against one another. if they had some religion maybe they might not. host: mike in dixon, tennessee. caller: hello. host: what are your thoughts on this? caller: i live in a very blue area.

blue in a very red area. but religion tries to teach us to take care of one another and it's one nation under god. i think there's a lot of interpretations of god, every major religion to be a christian, jewish, catholic, muslim, has their own conception of a higher power. and you know, we should all have, i mean, this country was founded on the right to worship as you choose. when s the founding everybody came here because they were persecuted as someone else was saying a few moments ago, but you can't take the bible and combine it from the constitution. you have to take what you learn from it and twe saw that in the last couple of elections in obama.

people were scared he was a muslim. and i remember i am old. i'm 60. i remember when john kennedy was elected he was the first catholic, everybody thought the world was going to implode. but it didn't. it cost him but it didn't implode. religion can create if a nat criticism. it was interesting what you read a moment ago but i think that's what tomas jefferson was infering that one protects the other. if you look at modern-day iran, at least what we're told about modern-day iran and their if a nat criticism, i don't think the average arraignian thinks terribly of us but it's our leaders and business leaders and economic and corporate leaders that are at war with their counterparts over there. it's not you and me and

somebody else on a talk show this morning. it's that the. i think that's the people that should fight the wars. you know? if they have religious and economic beliefs, they ought to go punch it out not us. host: mike on headhunter says no, but it does. they use religious issues to divide the people and on twitter -- church and state, keep them separate. we'll keep getting your thoughts, but first back to the headlines, a deal is emerging between business and labor leaders over immigration legislation spesketly on what to pay low-skilled immigrants that come into this country. here's the piece.

host: so we don't know exactly what is in this detail, under what the two sides have agreed to. and also from this morning's "new york times," they write -- a republican of florida and a member of the bipartisan group that's working on the legislation sent a letter saturday to senator patrick lay the nd the chairman of senate judiciary committee urging against excessive haste.

host: then this morning on the daily caller, they have this headline. rubio demands hearings." we should learn more details. hopefully this morning, if you listen to sunday talk shows, specifically on "meet the press," charles schumer and the republican of arizona, two members of the so-called gang of eight in the senate that are working on this legislation. they are on "meet the press." lindsay graham who is also part the group of eight and they will be talking about same-sex marriage and also theodore who argued earlier before the court and mark kelly, husband of former congresswoman gabrielle gifford, who -- excuse me, mark

kelly and will be on fox news sunday on that show, and then the the nation" has cardinal. by the way, for news makers this sunday we sat down earlier in the week with afl-cio's leader richard trumka about what he would like to see on the bill before this reported deal. but if you watch today at 10:00 a.m. eastern time and 6:00 p.m. this evening here on c-span, you will hear details about what could be in any sort of a deal and specifically what labor groups would like to see in this. also this morning in the baltimore sun is this headline about the cost of war. modern war cost may hit $6 trillion in the future. the wars in iraq and

afghanistan will ultimately cost between $4 trillion and $6 trillion with medical and disability payments to come. the bill to taxpayers so far as been $2 trillion plus $260 billion in interest on the resulting debt. and -- host: that's from the baltimore sun this morning. we are talking about the role of relidge engine politics. tim in arlington, virginia, independent. hi tim. caller: yes. i think there should be a wall separation between church and state to quote -- and i think candidates to share

heir first amendment rights -- -- what was the other thing? well, -- c-span journal, you guys are awesome. what's really great about it is the presenters have no -- i can't detect any opinion whatsoever from you guys, all right, thanks, mary, democratic caller. hi mary. go ahead with your thought, you're on the air. caller: i wanted to say that's the reason i stopped going to church where i live is because of the obama bashing that i was hearing from the leaders of the church. i think it should be kept separate. i do not think a preacher or deacons should try to influence the members of the church's vote. i think that that is wrong. host: do you want to tell us what church you went to and

what they were saying? caller: well, one deacon got up on a wednesday night and said well, now we have a muslim in the white house. i was offended by that, because i'm a democrat. then the preacher -- i will say he stepped out of the pulpit when he said this -- he thread congregation in prayer and parade that our president would get a new heart. host: all right. from north carolina, independent caller. caller: yes. i wanted to make a comment about the first caller. and what was really worrying is she made a remark about that fact that at the democratic convention they voted down some religious wish that she had, and she then said that she felt because of that the whole party was godless. it's really troubling when

people hear what a few people vote about and then want to use a big brush to paint all of them as godless. at's much as the people have painted certain non-white groups when things happen in terms of all people who are frican-american, lazy. these, when you use a brush like that, it decreases conversation. it is not true. it builds up walls and it makes us unable and unwilling to talk about the issues we have got to talk about. host: ipt there. richmond time dispatch has that courtesy. new poll shifts in beliefs as a national debate of same-sex

marriage. the ground is softening in virginia. it shows less than seven years after they easily passed an amendment to the state constitution that defines marriage between one man and one woman, it's essentially split now. and the connecticut newspaper it says following the newtown massacre, emotional pleas seemed likely -- it says desean jackson

host: next to that story is a map, the newtown effect. host: the red states are gun rights and the neutral color is mixed and the blue is where gun control legislation is happening across the country. that's in the hartford current this morning then in the state newspaper in south carolina has this about the first congressional district and democrats are betting on colbert bush, nominees says she turns challenges into blessings and the sister of stephen colbert. then the times picayune with their headlines this morning. this paper in new orleans, the governor's tax plan has few

fans. it says his proposal to limit the state income and corporate taxes in favor of a broader sales tax would be a tough sell for jindal. and then starting in april 8, an automated transit system that was 30 years in the making would make moving patterns this is what the sky train of tomorrow looks like. $1.6 billion is the cost of the program and five minutes is what it takes to get from metro rail system to terminal four. 2 million passengers are expected to tried first year. in the museum in washington, georgia a republican caller, should religion play a part in politics, glenda? caller: you use the words

religious, there's a lot of people who are religious. what we need are some spiritual people in there that believe in our lord, jesus christ. we cannot take god out of our government. this nation was founded on in god we trust. we take him out of the schools. look at what our schools are going through. we got folks bringing guns to school killing them by the hundreds. i mean, we can't dismiss god in our government. i mean, the united states, america, don't forsake god, and this lady that you had that she said her preacher got up in the pull pit and bashed obama. she didn't need to quit going to church. she just needed a new preacher. i mean the preacher she's got, he's not trusting god to show him what he needs to do in his

life and what he needs to teach his pulpit. what he is doing is bashing people. you know god is love. host: can i get your reaction to this email that we just got from sharon who writes, she writes religion is not synonymous with morality, morality is a necessary part of politics, the constitutional prohibition against church establishment has nothing to do with leaving traditional morality out of secular law. what do you think? >> there caller: there again, a lot of folks is religious, you know? and i know you can tell i'm a country bump kin from down here in hiram, georgia, but that's ok. down here in the country, we still serve the lord, and i'm telling you, there's people that talk a big game that they don't live it.

you know, you've got to live day-by-day and walk with jesus christ our lord. you've got to trust him. i mean, when you don't trust him, who are you trusting? host: grace in long beach, new york. good morning. caller: good morning. well, i don't think that religion belongs in government. host: ok. caller: because men has used religion to get what he wants. we have had wars. we've got greed, and we've got man's so-called freedom. they need to be separated. host: all right. independent caller from new york. here's a recent poll done on views of row v. wade. would you like to see the supreme court decision overturned or not? you can see how the poll breaks down.

host: that's how it breaks down according to a recent poll by the pugh research center. republican caller. caller: thank you so much for taking my call. i think history proves that when religion or -- and usually it's just, you know, well, one that takes precedence in our

government. it's not a good thing. however. first of all, in my church, we don't talk about anything in government. ot anything. because god feeds us while we are there and we keep it straight. but i always find it interesting how you go into christian churches and we pick them apart but have you ever been to a mosque? and hear what they talk about there? it's all about government. host: have you been? caller: pardon? host: have you been? caller: yes. of course. you know what? americans need to stop depending on this media that is

such a weak system. i am, i need to know for myself. i want you guys, because i want to hear it from the persons now. i don't want to hear an interpretation of what they said. because i don't know the agenda of that person, and generally, they hide it and they will bald face lie to you. host: that's a republican call they are in saturday's "wall street journal" there was this headline. tug of war in g.o.p. over gay marriage and it says ohio republican senator rob portman stands out as an exception on this issue of the 36 still-active democratics in congress which recognizes only heterosexual marriages, all but nine have changed to support gay marriage. just two of the 51 republican backers of the bill still in congress have had a similar

turnabout and a "wall street journal" nbc news poll said 27% of republicans said they approved of it. it also goes on the say that aalaskaen republican senator said her views on gay marriage are evolving and she is reviewing her position very closically. more from the "wall street journal" fur interested. saturday's "wall street journal" edition. also from the newspaper this morning, here's "the washington post," their editorial page on guns, the senate's moment. when the senate returns senator majority leader harry reid says they will take up gun legislation and says majority ader harry reid says senator feinstein's proposal will be

excluded but will get a separate vote as an amendment. that the juncture, tactics matter. also -- i know this "washington post" this morning calling on the senate to approve a restriction on high-capacity ammunition magazines when they take up gun legislation when they return after this spring recess on april 8. john in annapolis, democratic caller. hi john. caller: thanks a lot for c-span. i'm really glad to see that some of these republican call errs are evolving and republican politicians are evolving along gay marriage and , you know, it's always encouraging to hear, people

that previously said they don't believe in evolution to hear that they are actually evolving. that's pretty encouraging. they want to convince the government to stay off of our backs, i think first they should stop asking the government for money and maybe stay out of our bedrooms. that would be like a good start. i don't know. it just seems like when i travel around, you know, i see that there's a lot of religions. i've done a lot of traveling in my life and there's a lot of different faiths and religions. i don't think there's any place for them in our government. i think they should be totally separate and it causes a lot of problems when they try to merge those things together, and i really just find it befuddling that it seems like a lot of the evangelicals want to force their views on everybody else.

host: all right, john. the report this morning has this banner on its front page. putin ordered ban on adoptions by foreign gay couples. also if you go online to do a search on google you will find this. these are -- caesar chavez's face is part of the logo this morning he was born march 31, 1927 so his birthday today, google marking it. going to owings mills, maryland, hi, andre. caller: hello. first i would like to give you a compment for looking so well put together so early in the morning. that's really hard work. also i don't think it's actually possible to separate your mohrals from government, but you have to separate your religion from making choices

while you're in government, because the institutional basis, you know, religion can kind of be seen as institution. the government is definitely an institution. now, as far as gay marriage, that is, you know, that is definitely religion. i'm a christian, so i believe in god. people that are hidden do you or buttist, i don't know exactly how they feel about marriage, but when you talk about marriage, you're actually going at god, because that's a relationship he put between man and woman. so i don't know how they do it in hidden do you or buddhist but when u dealing with others, it's a relationship between man, woman and god. host: so what do you think the justices should decide? they are looking at two separate same-sex marriage cases a decision to come at the end of june. what do you think? caller: they have to make their

decision based on the population. based on what people feel. based on the route of the people that their government what to do. if they made their decision based on religion, they are basing it on what god or what their interpretation is of what god would make in his decision. that would go the route of the way the population is thinking and they have to use their mohrals also. host: all right. in union grove, alabama, democratic caller, hi. caller: hi. this is jimbo calling from union grove. i just love you guys, the way you delve into the sacred cows of politics and religion. it's wonderful to see it. you don't see it anywhere else on the networks. our biggest problem i think with religion and politics are people's perception of what it actually is.

you know, we go by the old jew default pattern where we came from. they are die metically opposed to one another, the jews and christians, that is. and wall street our biggest problem is the greed of wall street. that's biggest problem we have right now in america. we should keep religion out of the politics. in fact, the in god we trust thing, the thing people talk of so much particularly of right-wing republicans that people speak of so much was only recently put on our money. and that is diametrically opposed, because it's the -- list, he best seller

topping best sellers "lean in" by sheryl sandberg and second o'reilly t of the actor has the number seven " "killing nedy" then nk -- lincoln" comes in at number14. nd one writes --

host: out of the tax review or sandra day o'connors review of her book. in sterling heights , michigan, cindy, a republican. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call, and i want to say that this nation was founded upon the bible and our founding fathers believed in the bible and founded this nation upon it, and most of our founding documents were bible-based. so many people recently in the last couple hundred years or well last hundred years or so have rewritten our history. so a lot of people today don't know what our actual history is because it's been rewritten by people who don't believe in god and don't believe in the bible, so i want to say george washington drumrolled the gays right out of the military, and it was a public humiliation and

also said we cannot rightly govern world without god in the bible. host: rose ali next in connecticut. our last comment on this. caller: hi, i don't believe in religion being anywhere near involved in politics, because everyone doesn't -- as our country becomes more and more diversified, we're getting a lot more diversified religion and what religion are we going to follow? most people don't believe in god. they are more with darwinian theories of religion. we have so many people diversified and so many diversified religions. how on earth could we run our legislation -- how could they make decisions when there's so many people thinking different ways? host: all right. up next we're going to discuss the prospects for some sort of grand bargain on the 2014

bipartisan en the policy we'll about that but first president obama in his weekly address offered easter and passover greetings. take a look. >> hi, everybody. for millions or americans this is a special and sacred time of year. this week jewish families gathered around the table commemorating the triumph over egypt and victory over oppression. and we will celebrate the resurrection of jesus christ and the hopeful promise of easter. in the midst of our busy lives this day affords us the opportunity to slow down and spend private moments in reflection. as christians we treb sacrifice jesus took on for each and every one of us and we recommit ourselves to following his

example here on earth from loving our neighbors and seeing everyone, especially the least of these as a child of god. of course those values are at the heart not just of the christian faith to but all faiths. their echoes of powerful calls to serve our brothers and sisters and keep in our hearts a deep and abiding compassion to all and treat others as we wish to be treated. as americans we're united by something else, too. faith in the ideas that lie at the heart of our founding and the belief that as part of something bigger than ourselves we have a shared responsibility to look out for our fellow citizens. so this weekend i hope we are all able to take a moment and pause and embrace our loved ones and give thanks for our blessings and re-dedicate ourselves to interests larger

than our own. michele and i wish you a blessed and joyful easter. may god bless you and may god continue to bless the united states of america. >> "washington journal" continues. host: and we're back with our budget round table. stan writes the fiscal fitness column for "roll call" and "capital games and gains" and from the university of maryland, welcome to you both. peter let me begin with you. there's lots of talk that president obama wants to have a grand bargain in this budget process. what's the grand bargain look like to you? guest: well, the grand bargain would put us in good fiscal shape over the long-term. different people have different visions of how it's done but basically get the budget down where the growth and the debt essentially levels off and that it's at a level where as a percentage of the

economy it's considered to be sustainable. right now we're on track to become an italy. that's having debts too big and eventually have bond holders lose confidence. neil: your view, peter, what -- how do you get to a grand bargain? guest: the only way so get to the growth of entitlement spending that means doing something about social security and medicare and medicaid which means the rate of increase and medical costs which obama care has not accomplished. host: so peter morici, what does it look like to you? guest: as peter suggested, it's that's the -- bargain. we've already shown through sequest ration and other things hat appropriations and

domestic spending can be cut or at least will be cut. what we haven't shown is the willingness to have tax cuts in a meaningful way. i know there's a lot of people talking about it and the president says he wants it and people on the hill say they want it but it's hard for me to see that things have changed enough that just because people say they want things to change that they will. >> so what are the chances? guest: 50/50. >> host: ok. pete center guest: if you look at it it's like venus and mars. if you look at what they are proposing i look at them as groups thooth are blind and deaf to fact and reason. they i -- i see it as they say we don't really have to do anything about it.

we can do some trimming here and there but they are growing at an unreasonable rate and a dynamics that must be addressed. if you look at the republicans, they have fanciful notions of how the constrain the costs but their notions are from the land of oz the one being give granny a voucher. right now we have competition in the sense that big employers like yours and mine go out and negotiate with insurance companies for rates and in turn they negotiate with our providers. we showed rates have been increasing rather dramatically. i don't know how asking granny pit her against humana is going to get a larger vote. i don't see that as a way out. host: going against rep dance? >> i'm going against both of them. i think boxers and ryan's budget are both fanciful. guest: i apologize. to both senators.

host: so -- i believe the budget doesn't recognize that the demographics of the country with regards to the way we run social security, it's not just how we run it but defining the -- it's not an ideological thing, the numbers don't work. so it would be like saying i'm going to retire and collect $100,000 a year and i only have $300,000 in the bank. well, if you have a life expectancy of five years, you're in trouble. guest: everything peter said is almost certainly right, but the politics of this is what's going to drive the lack of a deal. i can't tell you the noffer house republicans who have told me since election day in twerltwerl that they are not sure if or when the republicans presidency win the again but they will keep the house until the end of the

decade. they are not wanting tax increases and that's the one thing that will most turn them off and in those circumstances seeing republicans give in on revenue sincere hard to imagine no matter what they get from the other side op spending. host: well, what about the base on elderly voters saying what do you want to do to medicare? want to have a private system? what is the impact on that? guest: it depends on how effectively you convince them. anybody who can reform medicare, med cadse, americans, chileans, germens, they all the have a basic rule. you don't touch anybody over the age of 55 because they are planning and on a trend line. guest: and they vote in higher percentages. guest: but you look at equity from a an economist's point of view, they have plans and are people that are stuck.

so every proposal you get leaves those folks alone so the elderly aren't going to vote against you unless you convince them you are going to leave them alone. big lobbying groups like aarp are not always helpful in that regard because there's always a suspicion that if you change things for people under 55 there's always the thought that you -- in defense of mr. ryan, he claims he intends to give people a choice the old system or new but we know how that will work. the healthiest people will go in the new system and leave the old system overburdened. guest: well, ryan's smesks are undetailed. if he were more specific. guest: we both read the budget.

even at the level of the principles he has found, and i'm a conservative, it doesn't make good conservative economics. if he were one of my graduate students i would require him to get another dissertation subject or go to the school of theology. because what he is putting out is theology. host: what grade would you give him? guest: his proposals where regard to health care i would give him an f. changing the indexing system or social security. first of all, it doesn't save a lot of money. don't want to get too technical. it's a general audience but changing the way compared to c.p.i. it would give them a nudge. but a correct c.p.i. for the elderly would give them more of an inflation zwralmt rather than less because the elderly seem to consume a different batch of goods, and that batch of goods are the most rapidly

increasing as far as weight into health care and if let's sates half your income and you're a moderate income person by the time you're 85, your real buying power is already substantially eroded, and again, they are not much interested in talking about facts, reason. guest: yes. this is not a rational debate. you've got to keep that in mind. peter and i could do statistics all year long but the budget debate is more emotional not -- >> -- host: well, tap into your experience working object house budget committees. is this citizenshipical? are they doing something new here? guest: it's typical but it's never been this bad. with one side agreing to block the other no matter what happens to make life more difficult. it used to ebe you came to

washington to do something you you come to washington to get re-elected. add to that social media, talk show hosts. don't take that personally. the way we communicate is differently now. the overexaggeration of politics the rise of the tea party the similar versions on the left you've got a situation far worse than anything i had to deal with when i was on the hill. host: paul ryan, come back and see if there's anything you see tpwhraff the two of you like. >> we believe we owe the american people a balanced budget and for the third straight year -- this is a document, a plan that balances the budget in 10 years. now the house budget committee has spent the last several weeks working together with each other like families and businesses do around the country. we have been assembling a budget to we can make sure our

country can live within its means. it's a reasonable goal balancing the budget and we can't just keep spending money we don't have. that's the basic acknowledgement when you're budgetting like families and businesses do that you cannot continue to kick the can down the road and continue to spend money we don't how do we do this? we repair the safety net so we help those in need and medicare, a program that's going bankrupt that's jeopardizing the health and security for millions of american seniors and we foster a healthier economy so we can create jobs and grow more wages you see, balancing the budget is not simply an act of arith ma tick not just getting expenditures and revenues to add up. it's a means to a pro growth society and pro growth economy that delivers opportunity. that's first and foremost why we are doing this. host: back with our round table

after listening to paul ryan outline his budget, stan, what do you like? is guest: i like his decrease in platitude. did you notice the tremendous lack of specifics of anything? in fact when you actually read the budget supposedly he just described, it tells you where he wants to go but it doesn't get you there. there are a lot of things that are minimized and i'll let peter talk about medicare and medicaid, because that's one of his big things and he focused all his attention on the spending side of the budget when revenues are at almost their lowest point in the past 50 years. guest: i guess we don't agree completely, but that's why we're here. taxs are high enough. i think the tax burden needs to be moved around and adjusted and reformed so everybody has the skin in the game but also so we don't have imbalances with someone paying by big

standards and others paying nothing. but i'm fine with his goals as far as his overall picture like the road map from los angeles to new york offline going from a route. but when you draw down, medicaid, right now the federal government on medicare really doesn't do an adequate job of regulating prices. some of the prices are way too high. we pay far too much for drugs and drugs can charge whatever they want on medicare. medicaid they are somewhat regulated. medicaid he basically wants to deal with the high cost by dividing it up into 50 programs essentially giving it to the states and saying you figure it out. i'd like to see how 50 state governments are going to more effectively be able to deal with drug companies than one government.

how they are going to effectively deal with something that goes on in every system, rationing. that's a political hot potato. >> so you don't think we will have more buying power? >> yes. this is why i say death to reason. the federal government is in much better position to run a regulated health care system which in the end we will have to do. host: isn't that medicare? >> both are regulated but ineffect ily regulated. guest: i think peter is talking overall obama care. i'm not big on historical averages but 17% of g.d.p., 18 1/2 or 19%? >> according to 2014-2015, we'll be at 19% of the historical average, the historical average is 18%. guest: let's not quibble over -- here's the point which is i hear a lot of people saying

it's not a revenue problem. it's a spending problem. the only way it's a spending problem is if you decide you don't want to raise revenues. you want to raise taxes. we built interest into the system. what we have to decide is whether we want to keep those commitments. if the answer is no, that's an acceptable answer. it's from the dysfunctions are a terrible burden on the economy. the u.s. government sector appears small but it's not. in europe remember the government sector includes health care. if you add health care in, because it's sort of this shadowy kind of area where the government does more than half and touf buy it anyway then the

two government sectors start to look comparable but how inefficient are they? in the united states, we spend 12% -- 18% of g.d.p. and rising on health care. in germany where everyone is covered and they have private providers but regulated prices it's 12%. that is an enormous burden and difference that we have to address. host: let me add our viewers to this conversation. tom, independent caller. caller: i would like to say that both of you are being extremely disingenuous assuming that $20 trillion by the time obama is out of office, tough state debt, the city's debt, the municipality debt and all this debt, there isn't enough money in the world to pay it back. both sides are splaying the smoke and mirrors game and the federal reserve is really the problem here. they're taking and printing

billions and billions of dollars and intentionally running the government bubble into the ground. europe is broke, america is broke, and they are purposefully doing all of this so that the american people will have no choice but to accept one world currency in a world government this so-called new world order. guest: nonsense. that's really simple. nonsense. if you're going to believe in conspiracy theories don't go to economic dog ma to do it. the united states is not broke number one. number two we never have to pay back the debt we just have to reduce the debt the percentage of debt growing compared to the economy. but one world government, come on. be serious. guest: i agree. we're together. but if we chop off the end of his thing, single currency, world government, just get to the federal government printing

too much money you say that is a very good explanation of why. and you can get comparable people on the other side. of why it's so easy for a congressman like mr. ryan to keep his job. you give that news clip like that, show it on a screen and you have conservative republican candidate come out in a two-party district and says our budget does something about that. we are concerned about that. our debt is getting too big. it's easy to throw that kind of stuff around. likewise it's very easy for mr. obama to say i don't understand why wealthy people shouldn't pay a few dollars more and just a little more so we can continue these programs. these tax increases are not a few dollars more and the folks are going to be paying a lot more. guest: but if you saw the recent story the wealthy were so upset and said they were going to stop spending hasn't changed their spending patterns. guest: i don't agree with you there. one of the things is those kinds of people pay quarterly taxes and haven't come to terms

with it. i was in the locker room of my club today -- where republicans hang out -- and people were saying how does this affect me? it is fairly complex and it takes a while. even ordinary people. i understand. they may say that but that doesn't mean it isn't going to have an impact when they start paying. we'll go wo guests, to a republican caller. caller: thanks for taking my call. number one we hear a lot about raising revenue and also entitlement reform and i would like to point out that it seems

like we always talk about cutting entitlements such as social security and medicare but when i get my paycheck those are the thing that is i'm taxed for directly. you have the more general income tax your state tax but then you have a special bracket for both of those and i think it's absurd that we talk about cutting specific programs that we pay specific taxes for. host: peter. guest: i think it's fair that one comes to me. essentially we take money from people's paychecks to finance a retirement program. let's be clear we're not paying for people's retirement out of the money they contributed. shortly after we established this program we started writing checks for people over 65 and they never put money in. it was about a year or so later. but essentially we're making a promise to people older people that younger people will support them. as folks in this country have become able to live longer and to be productive longer, we've gotten into a situation where the number of people paying

into the system versus being paid by the system has shrunk. it's simply people are living longer. if we took this gentleman's money and put it into an annuity of some kind, reasonable go to metropolitan life, it would finance the social security he would get. it wouldn't be enough. it's a matter of getting it right, a matter of picking retirement age that makes sense from the point of view of how long people can work and that is sustainable. the medicaid situation is much more difficult. the medicare excuse me. the old-age health care system. simply because in addition to the problem of having people get into it too young, we've got skyrocketing costs and we've got the problem that a lot of people between 50 and 65 are finding themselves without benefits. host: before you respooned, on twitter. guest: two things.

i agree with what most of people said but the key thing is we're going to get back on social security and medicare far more than you put in in taxes. so i understand what you're saying but you're paying for the program but you're not paying for everything you're going to get. and the question is should you or should somebody else or should nobody. and we reduce the benefits somehow? look, he's right. the person on twitter is right. he or she didn't vote for it. it was put in place in the 30s and medicare in the 60s but these are ongoing commitments just like he didn't vote to borrow money back in 1850 and we're still paying off some of that debt that's been rolled over repeatedly. in fact there is a referendum every two years and they keep electing incumbents. so in effect he or she is voteding for this. guest: we all have to live with the laws that our parents made. all kinds of laws. that's one of those comments that sounds good but doesn't make any sense.

host: let me ask you specifically about medicare because friday's "new york times" edition had this article on the front page. guest: shell game. at the end of the day it costs too much to take care of older people because the price that is we pay for health care in the united states for comparable services are simply much higher than they are any place el in the industrialized world. how bad is it?

in britain they spend 9% of g.d.p. on health care. hold that number. in the united states going into obamacare the federal government was already paying more than half of the -- the federal and state governments were already paying more than half of the health care costs. so that meant that they were already putting in about 10% of g.d.p. just on the basis of what the federal and state governments are spending we should be able to provide health care for everybody in the country at the level they do in great britain. and it's not great but it's pretty decent. but yet we never have to put all this private money in. the problem here is that we're spending too much money on health care and that neither of these proposals really address the price issue. the prices we pay are just too much. you don't have to pay the folks that look for x-rays, radiologists like they played in the n.b.a. to get people who want to be radiologists. guest: two things.

talking about too high but also talking about the revenues and profits. guest: trying to put the conservative on defense. no. one of the problems that we have in the united states is we have this enormous slice that goes out to health care companies administration. basically they're running public utilities and we pay them like they're running entrepreneur startups in the sillcon valley. e salaries of folks in the executive levels of the health care industry are very problematic. i don't know if those companies are extraordinarily profitable compared to other american companies like say general electric or boeing or what have you but they're not paying for those kinds of profits or executive salaries or all the bureaucrats because they deliver it in a different way. guest: i wasn't attacking you. don't take it so personally. in the "new york times." guest: you're too much of a gentleman to do that.

guest: jackie is an extraordinarily good reporter and i think the real key thing about the story, there were two people. robert bare is one of the best health care reporters we've ever had in the country. the key thing is that president obama was suggesting something that majority leader eric canter had already suggested and they were saying in the story essentially is there a meeting of the minds here. everyone i've talked to said this is a little trifle of the overall picture as peter was indicating but is it a little bit of a crack? maybe it's something some way to begin negotiations. i would be shocked if that happened before the 2016 elections. guest: it worries me, there's a couple different ways of coming up with a budget that looks acceptable. one is you raise revenue and increase taxes. it only buys you a couple of years because these costs are growing.

on the health care side and social security side you've got how long people are living. so it doesn't solve the problem and you can pay for things over by playing with and shifting around who pays for them. you know, higher copays for the elderly and so forth. the elderly are very heavily stressed financially. we all know people who spend their lives in golf resorts. but most of the elderly once they hit around 75 they're stressed financially. and these solutions which keep shifting more and more the burden to them out of pocket, that's how they're going to pay for things over. host: democratic caller. caller: good morning. the longer they talk the more that i have objection to what i'm going to say. host: go for it. caller: social security. and i take exception to c-span because you continually hear people talking about social security and somebody comes up and said maybe we should means test it. it is.

i pay up to 85% of my social security is being taxed at my marginal rate. number two. on the health care issue. letting the mute tule insurance companies go public is the biggest mistake that anybody ever made because the whole idea is not helping the people that are insured but making profit force the insurance company. host: all right. gene in new york talks about social security. "new york times" editorial this morning. guest: that's an editorial written by a good friend who has been working on that issue for years and years. i haven't read it yet but this is one of the -- well, let's bring peter into this part of the conversation because this is one of his specialties. but you hear a lot from folks that social security is not

going belly up until 2036 so why are we dealing with it now? guest: one of the things democrats point to is it's never solvent for more than 20 years or so. we have to look at the demographics and where we're likely to be 20 years from now and is it different this time? it probably is. it isn't driving the deficit right now but it will soon. because we'll have to take money out of the trust fund at a very high rate. and on an accounting basis it might not look that way. in reality touf come up with the money. but some of the things -- guest: question for you. guest: you are taking out more than you're putting in. that is a problem. guest: but is it also a problem we're only taxing people by taxing -- guest: you can solve the problem by raising the cap and that will give you a solution temporarily. but you cannot run a civilized society where people go to school until they're 25 and

retire at 65 and live another 20 years. it doesn't work. guest: people don't retire at 65. guest: and social security isn't acknowledging that. it lets people take the pension whether they're retiring or not. guest: that's not social security that's congress. irgetsdz and what i'm getting at is that the solution there that the big elephant in the room that nobody wants to address is really generally raising the retirement age. and also, one of the things they've done in other countries is that they don't just index the thing. they basically say older people are entitled to a certain percentage of the g.d.p. essentially. they have completely -- and then they divide the benefit on that basis. well, if you do that, then if you don't raise the retirement age people then get smaller pensions. guest: host: but by raising the cap, can you explain that? guest: sure. right now you pay social security taxes up to about 112,000 in income. so if you make 113,000 then the

income between 112 and 113 or anything beyond that doesn't get taxed. now, for someone in an upper income level that's terrific but it means these people are going to get social security later and they're not paying as much as they might otherwise. one of the things talking about raising the retirement age. the comments that ever got on my blog were when i talked about raising the retirement age and people wrote in that's great for you. you sit behind the desk. i do manual labor and i'm not physically capable of working beyond where it is now. i may not make it to 65. guest: at one point in time, people are not only living longer but they are much longer and we had that same issue when roosevelt said it. guest: people didn't live to 65 back then. guest: but if you looked at people i have memories of my grandfather who died at 62 of what he looked like at 62 he

looked much older than i do physically. and i am 64. so that arguement only goes so far you have to make adjustments in the labor market. that's my answer. host: let's go to howard in pennsylvania. independent. caller: good morning. had a ago donald trump lot of conversations about that we need to grow the economy. he talked about the fact that how much we would have to tax china's imports. and he actually said 40% you would have to put a tax on the chinese imports because they cheat on their currency and so we need to grow the economy. and we need to put some of these factories in the inner cities and the street gangs would maybe put their guns down

and have a job to go to. this country is sick. that's all i've got to say. host: all right. guest: well, first of all, the only thing we can put a 40% tariff on imports on china and they boont retaliate. and if you want to see the situation get worse faster start going in that direction. this is one of your specialties. you've spent a lot of time on this. guest: i'm not alone. clugman who is certainly to the left of me -- guest: really? guest: yeah. and on the right, thipt to do something forceful about china's currency. so what if they retaliate? their exports are bigger than ours to them. their capacity to retaliate is limited. unfortunately, though, donald does hit on some important points. the china problem is a big issue. but i guess the basic point he was beginning with is if we grew the economy quicker, if we grew the way we have in the

past, then these problems would be lessened. that is true. but don't think that dealing with the budget deficit is the panacea of making the economy grow faster. guest: thank god you said that because first of all to grow the economy we would do it in a second. > it's growing fixes the deficit somewhat. there are so many dysfunction that is we've built up some i've alluded to in this conversation. one is the high cost of health care which makes it difficult for our exports to compete. the other is china does cheat on the system just like they're involved in cyber espionage and the administration hasn't kept the promise that the president made when he was campaigning in the midwest for the first time to do something about it. and that does need to be addressed. before you rush and defend him i will also point out that mr. boehner is not anchinges is for the president to do much about

it. so there's not a lot of support among republicans to do something. they don't want to do what's necessary. >> i'm not rushing to defend anybody. that's number one. this is starting to sound like point-counterpoint. number two let me go back -- guest: i have a knack of taking it there. you sound so proffsorl. guest: which is a shock because you're the professor. in terms of growing the economy, if we knew how to do that we would get it done. the truth is paul ryan and his budget proposed, in the click you heard a few months ago we're going to grow the economy. we're basically proposing an austerity budget that's not going to help. guest: i want to say something quickly. we've already had lots and lots of stimulus and patty murray's budget has more stimulus. if stimulus worked we would see its results in more rapid growth. and as to mr. ryan's austerity

we had very good examples experiments. portugal, spain, italy. guest: it doesn't. guest: it doesn't work. if it worked those places would be the most dynamic locations on earth. guest: if prosperity and stimulus doesn't work is there any other choice? guest: i think we have fundamental structural dysfunction. guest: structural changes take time. guest: but at some point you have to start doing it. leader pelosi is saying wher the price of gasoline goes up we would have more oil but if we drilled more the last time the price of oil jumped we would have more. you can't get away from the fact that there are things that have built up over time through congressional and presidential inaction and politics that if we don't turn around we'll never grow. guest: i just have one thing. changing the price of oil is not just drilling for more oil it's alternative sources as well. host: time out.

because peter you brought us into the next seg waw into patty murray's budget. patty murray in her own words the senate democrat's budget. take a look. >> that the senate budget reflects the pro growth pro middle class agenda that the american people went to the polls and supported last november. our budget is built on three principles. number one, we need to protect our fragile economic recovery. we need to create jobs. and we need to invest in long-term growth. number two, we need to tackle our deficit and debt fairly and responsibly, and number three we need to keep the promises we made as a nation to our seniors, to our families, and to our communities. now, the senate budget takes us the rest of the way to the 4 trillion goal we all know about and beyond. it builds on the 2.4 trillion in deficit reduction that was

already done. we add an additional 1.85 trillion in new deficit reduction for a total of 4.25 trillion in deficit reduction since the simple son bowls report. this is a jobs and economic growth budget. we believe that with the unemployment rate that remains stubbornly high and a middle class that has seen their wages stagnate for too long we cannot afford any threats to our fragile recovery. that's why our budget uses equal amounts of responsible spending cuts and revenue from the wealthiest americans to fully replace the cuts from sequestration that threaten hundreds of thousands of jobs this year and cuts that will endanger our economic growth for years to come. host: dan let me go to you. guest: plat tudes and cliches. there's a couple of thing that is were most important. the first is that she got something through her committee and passed on the floor which means that the no budget no pay

thing didn't kick in. senators are still going to get paid. and the republican talking point about the senate not passing a budget for four years is now gone. but there's no chance this is going to get compromised with anything that paul ryan did. it's not even clear that they're going to go to conference. so we're going to be -- even though they pass add budget now this year for the first time in four years it doesn't mean we're closer to actually getting a budget. it just means we've taken a procedural step that has no substantive value. guest: it's unrealistic. they spend more money initially. a trill trillion worth of growth it hasn't given us us what we want. but we will have a budget. people fail to recognize that a continuing resolution is a budget. it tells you what you get. guest: continuing resolution is only appropriations though. it doesn't deal with medicaid, medicare and revenue.

guest: i understand but it's still a budget. we're going to continue doing what we're doing with some minor adjustments. and i think what they'll do is they're going to conference and they're going to talk past each other. they're not going to be willing to compromise. because what patty didn't point out is that not only did the president win an election but the republican majority won an election and they both feel they have mandates from constituents. and as a consequence they'll come up with something they'll paper something together that looks like that will say medicaid proposal but will be a continuing resolution and they'll call it a budget. guest: continuing resolution is only about 30% of all federal spending. so that's not really a budget. host: it is the discretionary spending. not the mandatory. guest: i'm thinking like an economist. if you say i'm going to continue doing what i'm doing and this is where i have to make a decision, that's the budget. even if it's not legally a

budget. guest: i'll accept that. guest: what i'm getting at is smantics aside i think we'll get something that looks like when you peel away the wrapping papewhear we're doing in the past. i don't see them coming to an agreement. host: let me go to a discretionary spending. guest: a couple of things about this. defense spending is high and it has been high for quite some time. ronald reagan's first budget director has a book coming out this tuesday in which he spends time talking about this. no president since eisenhower has understood the power of a quote military industrial complex that military spending will be coming down as we withdraw troops from afghanistan but 55% of all pentagon spending is personnel. and until there are jobs for these folks we're not taking any folks off the payroll we're

just going to bring them home from afghanistan. so the savings are going to be relatively small. guest: i have great confidence in the president's views on defense spending. i think he's going to find it difficult to cut defense spending for three reasons. one is that the defense department itself has a big health care program and it pays the prices that are mandated by the system that we have. and that's growing and becoming more expensive. it has a pension system that is way out of whack. people are capable of being military officers longer than 20 or 30-year-olds. most of your pensions are not enlisted men. most are people who work in offices who can continue working in offices and we can raise that retirement age and we don't. and finally, the military is very, very difficult to adjust. we need to spend more money in some areas and less money in others. we can talk about the total but we need to shift our resources. we need a bigger navy because of what's happening with regard

to china and the president is trying to shift assets into the pacific for that reason and we need more assets in the area of cyber terrorism and so forth. and one of the basic problems this guy's got is shifting resources to where he needs them and so if you put that along with the other two problems, i don't think mr. obama is going to find it very easy to come up with a defense budget that he likes that accomplishes his objectives that is a lot smaller than we have now. host: let me bring randy into the conversation, republican, waiting patiently. thank you. go ahead. caller: i've had so many thoughts on so many subjects here. three quick ones on social security roosevelt brought it in got to be such a huge account president johnson put it into the general fund and for all the politicians in washington to spend. now it's broke. now it's in trouble. now you turn it around like they're trying to blame us we the people. it's washington's problem that has taken our money and spent on something else. on paul ryan's budget you have

talked a lot about paul ryan's budget now let's talk about president obama's budget that got voted down 99-0. let's talk about that. and on the constitution you guys the number one thing for this federal government to do is to protect this country and now they're talking about cutting defense. that's where we should be more powerful is right in our defense budget. thank you. guest: what would really be helpful to eliminate on the first point the relationship between the budget and social security. and you understand that cold. guest: right. guest: if you can explain it briefly. guest: social security was a separate trust fund not really part of the overall budget in the 1969. there was a commission lyndon johnson actually started the commission but the change was made during the nixon administration. social security is part of what's now known as the unified budget but it is still a separate trust fund. whenever it has a surplus -- i'm sorry for the wonkieness

here. when ever it has surplus it must invest in government bonds. it is the biggest holder of u.s. debt. that's why people say write off the debt and start over it's because social security would be broke within seconds. back to something we talked about earlier. without the social security payments it wouldn't have enough money. guest: and we'll be going into the trust fund. from an economist point of view this is all smoke and mirrors. what really matters is the federal government takes in a certain amount of money and spends it out and we are very soon getting to the point -- we are to the point where essentially the general fund is subsidizing social security because the interest that social security earns is paid for by the general fund. so we're already kind of in the red on social security and it's going to get worse. so we have to do something to get that pension system right. host: from an economic perspective here's a tweet.

guest: this is another aspect of the growth problem. the economy were growing like it should be or it has in the past at times like these then we would have enough jobs. but it's a very sad situation. the other thing is that a lot of false expectations have been established for young people by folks like us. go to college and get a good job. the reality and the president doesn't understand this, speaker boehner doesn't understand this is the composition of workers the economy has required has been changed by the economy. it doesn't need a lot of college graduates any more. guest: you talked about the constitution and providing for the common defense. that's the actual phrase in the constitution. providing for the common defense doesn't mean that every dollar being spent on defense provides more defense capability. what i've never understood is why someone who can see that an extra sandwich in a school lunch program is waste but an

extra bullet or missile or trooper that is never going to be used is not similarly waffle. in fact we've been -- wafle. we've been maintaining a -- we've no longer trying to stop ground troops in eastern europe coming from russia. it's more technological and that requires different types of spending. you can get the same amount of defense capability by not spending quite as much as we did when we need it had troops on the ground and prepositioned equipment. host: i'm trying to find a headline because you rereminded me of a new study. but the big cost of war is coming 30 to 40 years from now and 6 trillion was the figure when you're looking at disability payments and dealing with medicare costs. guest: that's the cost of the afghanistan-iraq war. she's been spending a lot of time since the war started about how much it was going to cost.

what is the estimate 2 trillion? he got fired for doing that gurg the bush administration. 6 trillion is not just the cost of the current operations but it's the cost of the interest on the money we've borrowed, the cost of the veterans benefits that we're going to have to pay. the military pensions that we're going to have to pay. guest: it is a very costly situation we're involved in but the fact is that's done. it's a commitment. that's a commitment that we can't change because it's there. it's done. but the military really is a fantastic system. i was going across europe this summer on one of these cruises and i was with a retired colonel. he had been prepared his whole career to be in command. he spent 1 months in command in western europe. the rest of the time a good bit -- he had time in earlier situations and so forth but he spent a lot of time working in the bureaucracy and in the end he was a bureaucrat and they

sat him down, they retired him. in his 50s when he could have easily gone on. the military pensions aren't for ground troops. most enlisted men don't serve 20 years. the real problem with the military pension system is for officers and who could frankly work longer. host: and they can retire at 40-something? guest: 20 years if you're a major or something. a typical colonel will retire somewhere between 28 and 30. i'm going to get slammed on that for not getting that right but a colonel can't stay more than 32 or 33 years which means they're out at age 55. host: dan on twitter. independent caller. caller: good morning gentleman and lady. we've got a big mess on our hands. i guess i want to hold the two fellows there a little bit accountable for being so dismissive of ryan's plan but also being a little bit cursory about murry's plan, too.

in the end neither seem to work. we're going to have to come together rationally that is something that seems we've allowed the ster i-typing to mess us up. but i want to hold on the austerity argument where you said it's been shown that austerity doesn't work. it's been shown in countries that don't have the same financial banking infrastructure or capability to have a self-sustaining economy. we're not an italy or a greece or something like that. we're not a spain. we have one of the major reference currencies of the world. and the problems are complex. and it's time to stop some of the stereo typing both in economic positions and political positions. i'm in my late 50s and on the health care i maybe have been hospitalized twice in my entire life from the time i was a child. i'm relatively healthy and i've got a few aches and pains but who cares.

and where is all this money going? it seems like it's going into the infrastructure of health care more than anything else. host: let's get an answer from peter on the first point where you were challenging him on austerity. guest: there is no other country like the united states. so on that basis we can one can never make reference points or look at other experiences. italy is not port gal. italy is an advanced country. it has a manufacturing sector very comparable to us. look at the fee at 500 and they've straightened chrysler for us. it's a very sophisticated place. it's gotten tied up in the same political knots that we have because of budget problems but austerity is not working well for italy. but more than that, economic theory basically says if you subtract from demand you'll grow slower. right now we have other structural issues that essentially require us to have a reasonably significant budget deficit to maintain employment

today. the problem with that is because we don't fix our structural problems it's like an addiction and we keep going on with these big deficits we will have a debt that at some point is too large reference currency or not. in fact, i maintain we may be closer to that than you think. the federal reserve is buying 85 billion in bonds a month. that is larger than the federal government deficit. it's essentially taking bonds off the street. if you stop buying 85 billion worth of bonds every month i think long rates would be very high and people would be starting to ask questions about the sustainability of american finances that would weather the -- like it or not, be very reminiscent not about the concerns about spain which is much less advanced place but very reminiscent about the concerns people are voicing about france and did voice about italy. host: let me go to twitter.

in this conversation of a budget, people outside of washington constantly say when are you going to do something about jobs? where are the jobs legislation? can that happen in the budget process? can it happen at all that congress can write legislation that creates jobs? guest: sure they can write legislation that says anything but actually doing it is different. and a couple of things. there are some folks in washington who don't think it's the government's responsibility to create jobs. that's the private sector. that was the rand palls of the world. the ron pauls of the world. number one. number two, there is a lot of opposition. we've used the word stimulus a couple of times. but if the private sect senior not spending if corporations

aren't spending and trade is not helping the euro zone is in trouble and state governments cutting back if you add federal austerity to that there's no positive input to g.d.p. there just isn't. so what we're talking about is a very, very slow jobs recovery under those circumstances. if the government was spending more money, if instead of reducing the deficit now it is add together deficit either with the tax cut that people were spending or with direct spending that allowed lockheed martin to hire more people that would create jobs and economic activity. guest: you know the answer i'll give you to that is yes so i don't know what the point is. of course if we had a bigger deficit that's what stimulus is. you tax less or you spend more. depending on how you spend the money and how you cut the taxes you'll get different impulse but unless have more employment. but the problem is you get to the point where your debt is so

large that you can no longer borrow the money to keep the system going that way. but we need to do is to structurally reform the american economy. we're facing a lot of the same problems as the southern europeans are facing and neither the republicans nor the democrats in the basic budget the basic approaches of their budget address those structural issues nor did they address the budget issues very constructively. i liken to patty murray's budget or paul ryan's budget animal sacrifice. they're basically based on superstition. the notion that somehow or another saying forcefully we are going to keep the commitments we've made to people, somehow makes the social security system solvent when it's not. or that austerity is the way to get the private sector to create jobs when we have clear examples that it doesn't. i mean, you know they're playing to their bases why they get elected.

guest: and this is why the answer to the question we just got to twitter doing something about jobs requires either a compromise or something political that was just not acceptable now. so that's why we're not getting short term versus long term. guest: it requires people to let go on the hill of what they believe. in other words, patty -- guest:ing what they think will get them reelected. guest: i think they really believe it. if you look at patty murray's statements over time and paul ryan's statements over time i hink he really believes that giving grandma those vouchers will solve the health care problem and i really believe patty murray believes that through stimulus spending you only need to do that temporarily it will jumpstart the economy, you won't have to do it over and over again until the system collapses. host: let me get in two more phone calls.

pat, go ahead. caller: oh, man. i sat here so long i got thoroughly nervous. host: you're on. don't be nervous. go ahead. caller: what i called to take about entitlements and social security. and having people work longer when many people who are very highly skilled are being forced into early retirement because of downsizing outsourcing automation and their jobs becoming more complex. there are a lot of people that would like to work well beyond 65 but they are forced to retire at a 55 which also causes problems for them as far as hins goes. so jobs is the answer to everything that we're talking about. host: dan. guest: well, yes. but we don't know how to do that. and let's be honest about it. i said it earlier. if we knew how to create jobs -- the government could hire lots of people we could go back to the project from the depression era where the government would be hiring

people to dig ditches. that's not what we need. what we need are permanent jobs in industry. guest: i think we do know how to create them. guest: short term? guest: if you want immediate gratification in every conversation which is the democratic line then you never have a solution. i cannot solve all the problems that have been built up by democrats and republicans over the last 20 or 40 years in 20 minutes. so if that's the litmus test then no economist can offer a prescription that works. host: let me put this in the conversation. guest: one of the problems that we have is when we talk about regulation, if you talk about reducing regulation immediately the other side says you want no regulation at all and look what happened on wall street. the trick is to get it right and it's a good example of the structural reforms we need. dodd frank created very, very

onerous regulation in terms of the amount of paperwork involved and so forth when democratic economists and republican economists alike and banking experts -- not bankers themselves they would not like this, acknowledge that maybe there's a need to create a more competitive solution with reasonable levels of bureaucracy. mainlyly by busting up the big banks. part of the problem is concentration of power on wall street. that's why we had this, for example. you couldn't handle jp morgan effectively with regulators. host: republican caller and our last for the two gentleman. go ahead, walter. caller: my question is on social security funding. what is the compounded interest rate on social security? and could the mortgage-backed securities that the fed is borrowing, does that interest rate compound faster than what the government is currently paying? guest: i can answer the first part of that. well, kind of answer.

the social security trust fund gets the same rate the market rate that other securities do at the time of the auction. so i don't know what the compound rate is. do you? guest: i think what he's asking is what's the relative rate of interest. that rate of interest is lower than you would get on mortgage-based securities because there is a little more implicit risk so they are getting a little lower rate of interest but the point is it doesn't matter. at the end of the day it's a matter of what slice of the economic pie we give to people who are no longer working and that is goinched the benefit that we promised them and the number of people that are no longer working. and if we keep the retirement age where we are, that becomes an unbearable burden even if in the short term we raise the cap on social security taxes and so forth. eventually people will have to work longer and will have to accommodate people in stressful jobs by finding them other work. host: what about mortgage bonds? guest: they pay a little higher rates of interest but they do have risk associated with them. mortgages can fail. guest: and the whole idea

behind the government investing surpluses in treasure rizz was to eliminate risk. yes they knew they could buy equities, they could buy stock and get a higher rate of return but how would you like to be a social security trustee when the stock market went down? guest: the only real answer is people working longer and the economy growing more rapidly. there are things we could do right now that would generate a lot of growth within two years. for example, drilling for more oil, doing something about the trade deficit with china create more demand for american products here at home. two very good examples. and we should replace dodd frank not throw it away with meaningful regulation in banking sectors so business ks get loan again. guest: that's an economist talking not a politician. host: we have to leave it there. this conversation i think will continue on your twitter accounts so you two bter check them because we have a lot of people using your handles on our feed right noy. so if you want to follow stan

coledder you can go to his twitter handle which is the budget guy. you can also go to his blog capital gains and games. peter maursie who sends out by e-mail your thoughts quite frequently university of maryland professor here. guest: the easiest way to find me for those is p mearsie at g mail.com. guest: and the twitter handle. thank you both. coming up next we're going to turn our attention to immigration policy and efforts under way on capitol hill to reach some sort of deal. we'll be right back. >> the sequester will reduce our grants by about 5%, which

roughly equates to 22 million dollar or so. which will be distributed among the various licensees and stations that i've described. and so we have in fact taken about a 13% cut in our overall federal funding over the last two years and if the entire federal government had sustained the cuts that we sustained the budget would be $500 billion smaller than it is now. so we feel that we've made a significant contribution to deficit reduction and retirement of the federal debt within our own context. >> the impact of spending cuts on public television monday night. >> mr. secretary, we're going to put them down as undecided.

mr. chairman, as i listen to those comments it struck me what a wonderful thing free speech is. >> that was the hearing where donald rumsfeld was making the argument for attacking iraq. what you didn't hear where questions that we had a chance to ask him is how much money is halliburton going to make from this war, how many u.s. soldiers will be killed in this war? how many iraqi civilians will die from this? and i would like those questions answered now by somebody like donald rumsfeld. >> more with code pink cofounder tonight at 8:00 on c-span's q&a. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we're back with rebecca the immigration policy director for the bipartisan policy

center. here to talk about efforts under way on capitol hill to come up with some sort of deal on immigration policy. let me show you the headlines from this morning's papers. there are those cautioning this is not set in stone yet. how will this work? what are they negotiateding here? guest: well, it's complicated. i'll try to avoid getting too wonky on it. host: it's c-span. go ahead. guest: right before they went into their april recess it came out in the press and through people that were involved in the negotiations that they were struggling to reach an agreement specifically related to wage rates for temporary workers and who would be

included in that program, whether or not construction workers would be included was a specific sticking point and where the wage rate would fall in the tiers of wages. based in the labor department. so it sounds like -- well, as of the night before recess afl was running one way and the chamber was running another way and everyone was starting to spin in the press which is never a good sign on immigration bill but senator schumer got on the phone with the heads of both afl and the chamber and it sounds like they reached an agreement on the cap how many temporary workers would be let in every year and how those wage rates would be calculated which is a huge step forward. at our previous immigration negotiations we never had afl-cio on board so this is incredibly significant. however, marco rubio just five minutes ago put out a press release saying that they have not reached a deal yet.

that he is encouraged by where they are but a deal is not set in stone. and that he also thinks that no matter what the proposal comes out of the gang of eight is that he really feels that it needs to go through a full process in the senate judiciary committee and needs to have an extended full process on the senate floor. so i think that this is incredibly encouraging but a lot of the headlines indicate that we are now done and moving forward and i think that's maybe a little bit of a step too far. there are a number of thing that is still need to be flushed out including the actual legislative text which we all know is a big step from proposal to text. we're waiting to see that still . host: and here's the daily caller this morning. so we still don't know what's going to happen here. however, on this issue, of guest worker program and wages and things the "washington post" reports this businesses have lobbied for 400,000 new visas.

meanwhile, construction industries would be limited to no more than 15,000 visa. what do you make of these numbers? guest: the original 400,000 was part of our immigration proposal in both 2006 and 2007 and that was based on the estimate that there were approximately 375,000 people crossing the border every year to work. so the idea was to use a number, use a temporary worker program where the number would replace those that were coming here illegally. however, in both debates we lost that amendment on the floor that then cut that number

down 200,000. so those are the bases for both the 400,000 and 200,000 number. they're now starting like the report in the press that 20,000 which is a significantly smaller number than where we started in 2006 and 2007. but i think that we have to recognize that the economy is in a different place now than it was in 2006 and 2007. and it's quite possible that our economy isn't going to need as many workers as we thought that it did back then and can't tolerate the influx of the number of workers. however, i think it's key to point out that probably the best thing that we can do for our border security is have a realistic temporary worker program that reflects the number of people that want to come in every year. and to short change that number is going to cause us to just repeat the same cycle of people trying to find a way to come into the country. if there are willing workers in sending countries -- not just mexico. but if there are willing workers and willing employee

employers here in the united states trying to fill jobs that americans are unlikely to fill many of them, then you're still going to have people coming here and overstaying their visas which is a huge part of the unpopulated documentation and finding ways to come into this country so the idea that we can do a comprehensive immigration proposal and have a secure border and deal with this across the board without a realistic temporary worker program is just not possible. host: our guest rebecca talent as we said immigration director. experience with drafting immigration legislation worked with senator mccain and drafted a couple of pieces of legislation for what congresses? what sessions? guest: it was i helped draft the mccain-kennedy proposal in 2006 and then which was passed the senate but didn't pass in the house. and then helped with what is nd of being called the kennedy-kyl proposal.

he kind of took those negotiations over. so they're all based off of a fundamental draft which was put together in 2005 and 2006 known as mccain-kebbedy which then went through the process and became a hodgepodge of didn't titles on the floor but that was the last piece of legislation that we had pass the congress. host: biggest sticking point? guest: that's a good question. we actually i would say the temporary worker program really was definitely the point in 2007 where we really hit a wall. if you look back at the floor debate there was a crucial amendment that sunsetted the temporary worker program after five years and once that amendment passed by one vote the whole process kind of fell apart. the interesting part about drafting immigration legislation especially talking about temporary workers is it involved a lot of the labor laws then you have people come in and help with that piece and

it gets very complicated and i've never been a labor lawyer. it's very, very complicated int cal law that requires a lot of expertise. host: what about border security? guest: back then border security wasn't that tough of an issue because we all were in agreement that the border needed to be secure. and that we weren't there yet. now there's an interesting conversation going on about how we've made such strides in border security how much more can be done and there's kind of an odd political sticking point with the administration because they've been insisting for the last four or five years that the border is so much more secure but there's an agreement that something needs to be done on border security to get republicans on board so how do you right that ship? now we're going to say that we need all of these assets to get it done? >> host: administrator republicans including tom coburn who said

the border has to be secure first before we move forward. here is homeland security secretary janet napolitano at a breakfast last week talking about the border. >> that is a very it turns out a very difficult thing to do. and any kind of statistically significant way. but in terms of how we measure border security or what we look for it's a combination of the man power, the technology we have, the aerial coverage and infrastructure. so, for example, we now have aerial coverage over the entire southwest border. we didn't have that before. they can then tip thing that is are seen to our forces on the ground. the technology part is absolutely critical as a force multiplier. and we have stationed more border patrol agents down at the border than ever before. so the numbers have been driven to 40-year lows if you just look at things like

apprehensions. so we know we're achieving success there. but a real measure is more qual tative. really when you step back and think about the border, what you want is the ability to spot illegal in the, particularly in highly trafficked areas and then the ability to respond to what is seen and using that measure and the plans we have, we're the border is as secure as it's ever been. >> but do you have -- but there's no one number that.aptures that is the problem if you're just one number. host: rebecca tallent, the but no proof.e >> guest: right, right.

sticking point, what is your border security matrix. decide what border security means? does that mean you have zero year?rs every ofn if you have a free flow traffic across the border, people will always try to get the border. what does border security mean. are arerenced there certain sections of the border that are deemed secure, as in yuma and del rio and they had a definition at that point, border had a definition at that point of what a secure border looks like. however, they have moved away are lookingtrix and for something else and i think that's going to be a huge, huge debate.this the more conservative republicans like somebody like chuck grassley, jeff sessions, are really zeroing in this issue for the debate. they're moving away from the

think we'll still hear some of it but they're moving away from the amnesty welfare charges and zeroing in on the border security piece so if the gang of democratice leadership doesn't have a good response for them, that could derail the whole conversation because it's a hard talking point to argue against. know ouru say, i border is not quite secure because people in southern arizona will tell you the border is not secure. thishensions were up 9% year and anticipated to be the same this year so people are to cross. host: and the "arizona republic" friday, "tight border discourages migrants from going across, once they get because of all these strict penalties, tougher penalties, of that, crossing has become more dangerous, people are backuraged from going home. guest: that is true. one of the pieces of the

temporary worker program or legalization program has always been the ability for people to travel in and out of the country. that's one of the interesting parts of our immigration system puthat often we've ourselves in a place of discouraging people to travel back home to continue ties with families and friends there that would encourage them to return or leaving the country for any time duent amount of to the possibility of them losing their eligibility so parts one of the smaller of the debate that people don't talk about a lot but has been part of the conversation, we facilitate that flow and maybe one of the things we're looking at at the bipartisan is a way for the united states to work with mexico to help facilitate that and forthople back across the border and help build infrastructure back in sending would lessen the need for people to push north if that wasn't what they desired to a piece of the debate we haven't had a lot of conversation about in the past dig into aoping to little bit at the bipartisan policy center. host: four of the eight senators

so-called gang of eight working on this legislation visited the border last week. john mccain, lindsey graham and chuck flake. and chuck schumer become on press" this morning. -- bingham said, "you can't be too wonky on c-span." caller, hi, catherine. caller: i have a comment on this situation. with 20 million unemployed american citizens, some of them returning vets, a lot of them college students not being able find jobs, the parties to fall all over each other to to a group of people who country.t be in this

host: rebecca tallent? guest: there are two pieces here. rate which yout lot --tioning amongst a especially college graduates and veterans -- i know is a significant concern society that the gang of eight is putting together basis much of the cap off of unemployment in certain areas and certain sectors so you're not flooding the market in places ratea high unemployment with temporary workers where they might have the possibility workers fillrican those jobs, too. the second piece you mentioned was the pandering to people who here and i think there's -- that people are looking at the situation more in a practical way. you have these people here. the of them are working in now in and we are position where we have to address that population and deal with it in a realistic manner. one of the worst things we could do for our economy now is force

people out of jobs they're to growin and helping the economy so assuming there people here million illegally, you're talking about six to seven million of those in somey filling jobs sector or another, do we really want to cause more upheaval in our economic structure by forcing them to go home and there's a question as to what kind of sector we're talking jobs and what types of these individuals are filling and where the high upemployment rates are amongst the american workers so i think -- i think there are different aspects of this proposal that will be flushed out once we see the gang thinkht response but i do they are going to be very respectful of the concept of unemployment amongst american workers and that's one of the very things they're trying to address with the new proposal. host: twitter, mark williams asks this of you -- "i would lobbyistnow what groups are protecting these low paying jobs for immigrant workers." you would put afl-cio in that? who are the players?

i understand. afl-cio is very, very, probably the lead labor organization now that's working on -- guess youtecting, i could say, low-skilled american groups but you also have like seiu and teamsters, part of afl, a lot of labor unions are involved in the conversation. construction labor is very concerned, there's a high unemployment of american workers in construction at the moment but we have to look forward so if our housing market starts to again, where are those people to fill those jobs once the americans have also gone work and i think there tension there amongst our economyhere might be 10 to 15 years from now. guest: newsmakers at the top of the hour is with afl-cio richard

trumka, he sat down with us earlier this week before there an announcement of a reported deal. we have no details on whether or eight, all eight of them agree to whatever labor leaders and business leaders have come up with but in that interview, mr. trumka talks low-skilledfor workers and he said business leaders wanted 25% minimum wage and not what minimum wage that we know. what he'splain talking about? host: a little bit. i'm not a labor expert. an issue over, the labor department tiers wages so there are different levels of and different tiers and there was a question over what are level immigrants who coming into the country should be paid at. i think business would argue ift labor was saying that somebody was a tier one employee, which is an entry job, thatic skill set they were asking them to be paid

or tier three or could negatively impact an american worker still tier one wage level thatsinesses were arguing laborers were asking employers pay up to 110% of current wage rates for individual workers to so i thinkorkers everybody will put their spin on it but what's important is they've come to agreement and is their agreement is everybody should be paid what everybody should be paid and everybody should be made equal and it got very complicated in formulas and how to calculate that but at the end of the day, what they've agreed upon. host: in the politics of this, mr. trumka says republicans are not going to walk away,

need to do immigration reform, basically, implying that labor -- and you they haven't negotiated before -- implying here.abor had leverage guest: labor absolutely has leverage here. the democrats find them in a no-win situation on immigration reform. they get a bill done, president will get credit and democratic leadership will get credit on delivering a promise for many years in many people's eyes. if republicans kill the bill or if it's perceived republicans kill a bill, that's the political win for democrats, too. y is it's interesting that democrats are even willing to come to the table in a lot of ways if you're looking that the a political standpoint because they're in a win-win-win situation on this. we're talking about the senate but when this gets complicated politically is when you look at house. 2014 is a midterm election. focused on to be their districts and with redistricting, there are house

seats that don't really depend on immigrant voters or high levels of latino population within their district are going to be -- insularly more focused. looking at 2016 is when it gets interesting because you have a presidential election coming up, you've got president obama at the end of his term feeling the need you have to deliver on one of these big promises. somebody like marco rubio who a presidentialat bid and needing to have a win on this issue because this is the one he's focused in on so i think there is an argument that can be made that it's less onely for the house to move a bill this congress but perhaps next congress when they're nationally and they'll all be up for re-election at that point, too, but also with their eye on back sothe white house you could argue that maybe this is going to happen not this year in 2015 if there isn't momentum to get it through the ande this time around

talking with individuals in the house, there is still a lot of confusion about what they want to do. house leadership has not agreed if they want to move small piecemeal bills, maybe like a dream act or act jobs or border security bill. they've already done the stem bill. they did that last congress. andhey want to do that way kind of drop these little pieces at the feet of the senate and of ourwe've done part deal, you can either rectify the fivetion for four or million people or leave them in limbo and hold out for a comprehensive bill. that's the point where we get into a really interesting political dynamic and as somebody who enjoys the game of politics i'd be interested to play out.at would host: rebecca tallent, our guest, immigration policy directors at the bipartisan and former chief of staff for senator john mccain 2013 and through worked with him in previous years, as well, and helped draft

reformtion legislation in 2006 and 2007. mike in miami, republican, thanks for waiting. ahead. caller: thank you very much. listen. i'm calling from miami but i work on the southwest el paso,articularly with schools, public schools catholicsed down, even private schools being closed down in this country and the cities, how do we justify having kids -- and i see this coming from --ds living in mexico and crossing bridge of america in el paso every day going to schools? going to public schools and the people and the residents of thisso, they're paying for education through this property taxes. how do you justify? how do you justify that? you know, that's one question. question is, how do you, you know, does an

coverstion bill even those that -- those -- and i'm mostlyo be frank -- mexicans, there are a lot of nationalities that the immigration bill has to cover but specifically mexicans, how you justify -- not justify -- does this bill cover or situations where parents come over here illegally conveniently have kids, give birth to kids on this the border. host: i think we got your point. rebecca tallent? thet: i'll start with second point. what mike is referring to is this issue of birth right anizenship which has been issue on and off for the last few years as part of this debate. think there would be many that would argue that birth right some could, while say the system is being abused

currently in the kind of talking about,is it's also a constitutional matter that i believe is part of fabric of the united states, is that we're not france, we don't require a blood test to prove our citizenship. we are a welcoming country. where anybodyy can come and be prosperous and can earn the right to be a and can contribute to our nation. there are others that would definitely argue on the other side of this and say that our citizenship is precious and we giving it away for free and especially a situation in which you talk about where illegally, this shouldn't defer citizenship to a child because they're born here. issue.complicated i don't believe it will be addressed in the base legislation on what we're working on. i'muldn't be surprised -- not working on it, what they're working on -- i would not be as partd if it comes up of an amendment process on the floor. it usually does and it's

divisive. speaks to what is the heart of our country and it is a very tough issue to address but i do to not believe it's in the base bill the gang of eight is working on. in other issue is education schools along the border. obviously that's not how the be working.d we can't argue with that, people should not be crossing the border to go to schools in the united states. however, it speaks to the nature individuals who want to circumstances for their children and the fact that they see the opportunities in the united states for children as tremendous and they are trying to be part of that dream, too. it isn't a perfect system and it isn't the way it should be working right now but maybe if the system for people to come here legally, they can contribute to our society and pay taxes and partake in the resources that our state and

our federalments, government provide for individuals. that might be the best way for like address the system this. host: joe in macon, georgia, independent caller. caller: yeah. i don't think we need work programs for immigrants. what we need is work programs for american citizens and i'll give you an example. whenever somebody goes to court for writing bad checks or support,t of child just, you know, nonviolent crimes, a lot of times the judge give them community service. well, that community service privatelso include businesses that need dish washers, somebody to clean whatever they want them to do and put american citizens to work that way and them auld also give small wage but it would also givethem -- that could them a little bit money for gas money and lunch money and the tot of the money would go pay the court system, pay their

that, that and the other. host: rebecca tallent? what we'reink hearing here with this caller and a previous caller, too, is issue of putting immigrant workers before american and what makes this temporary worker program tricky is absolutely having to find where american workers are put first and that is one of the requirements -- i seen the legislative text but from what i'm reading in the press, that's part of the you have to prove american workers do not want the job are sectors,re believe it or not, that there are not american workers who do the jobs. i think you could argue that picking lettuce in the middle of yuma, arizona, is not a job that a lot of american workers are lined up to do. not saying there aren't workers who wouldn't do it but and they're struggling to get those products to shelves because they don't have the

done so it's always a balance of trying to find the balance between making sure theican workers have opportunity but not having the economy suffer and businesses suffer by holding out and not allowing them to bring in labor for jobs that american workers not able to or willing to do. texas,obert, pasadena, democratic caller. caller: i'd like to make my clear that the immigrants that are coming across the border right now are jobs directly away from the american people. in the construction industry, up so much of the where 50% of the workers, immigrantsng done by and it's taking construction completely out of the equation. also, i don't think that the numbers are true about how many are over here. there's no 11 million.

15re's probably closer to million and that's just the male male of the family. host: robert, i'm going to have take your last point. guest: the numbers, that's a question. we are talking about a population that's illegal so they're not on the books most of the time so inherently that leaves it up to question as to many people are here. believe it or not, they actually census numbers on the illegal toulation and this is -- 11 12 is the best estimate we have based off of those numbers. the 2007 debate, there were many who said it could be up to 20 million. right nowperception is that we're within net zero immigration because of the state the economy but what does that mean? i think you could debate these for a long time but based on census numbers, 11 to 12 is the best number we have

and that also, because those are census numbers, accounts for not just those employed so that's the number we thereow but i also think is a big question about if you put through legalization program of those people would come forward to be legalized. that's an important question people mayot of decide to return to their home country. they might take the temporary for a few work here years and rather than get a theircard, go back to sending country because a lot of immigrants are coming here for two, three, four years, working, up a pot of money and going home so you're talking about the actually legalization many people are going to be getting green cards and eventually becoming citizens number drops again from the 11 to 12, maybe even by half. thehen you look at what gang of eight, so-called gang of eight in the senate is proposing a pathway to to citizenship, what does it look like?

the best intelligence we've gotten on this has been from who, speaking on one of the sunday shows a few weeks ago and talked about how looking at redoing the entire immigration system so when you come to the country legally, you come in as either a temporary worker on a temporary visa, you come here as a visitor, but if you want to come to permanently stay, become a green card and become a citizen, you come through a family category or employment category. the majority of people who come here for green cards right now categories.n family that is not necessarily consistent with many developed world so around the people have thrown around the from beingfting that more family based to be more employment based. the things that derailed our proposal in 2007 was that they actually did away employmentmily and based categories and funneled everyone through a points based sounds like from

what senator graham is saying is they're going to keep higher level family categories so the immediate relatives of citizens, possibly immediate relatives of green card holders -- spouse, minor children -- and roll everyone else into a points system which is a significant, probably the biggest overhaul of our the laston system in 50, 75 years and it's incredibly and incredibly complicated. when we were doing our points spent attem in 2007 we least two weeks behind the doors saying, does that earn you three or two points and how many points does someone need to get a green card? can look at the british system, canadian system, system in new zealand and australia, have a points-based system where you earn points to get a green card and i think are looking to those as a model but the important part they're not going to be eliminating all the family categories like we did in 2007. in 2007, you could still come in but you hadmember

to earn enough points to come in as a family member, as well, it soundsis proposal like is going to still keep at least the higher level uncapped family members still in place so they're trying to strike a and haveetween the two everybody funnel in through that system. it will be interesting to see the construct. it's going to be complicated and i'll be really interested to see how the house huge overhaul like that. host: new town, north carolina, cindy, republican caller. caller: good morning. liketed to say that i feel this is out of control, this immigration is not a democrat, a republican, a loss, what is actually should be is for the citizens of the and we all need to look at that. democrats are going to win on

this? sure they're going to win. if the republicans fight against sure they're going to lose but the real loser are the citizens of paying the united states. thank you. says on twitter, grace "will mr. graham make sure it takes 20 years to become a u.s. nearly imsnoble isn't ?"at his agenda guest: that's a better question to pose to senator graham but that havehe articles come out in last 24 hours, it sounds like they're looking at a 13-year path to citizenship, which is an eight-year path for a green card. you have to hold a green card for five years before being apply foro citizenship so that's in law and won't be changed but the question is how long is the path to get point where you get a green card and much of that is based off of the border security, trigger, whatever that trigger looks like and the clearing out of the backlog

is people currently outside the country waiting legally to come in and how do you clear those people out and make sure nobody who's here illegally gets a better path people who have been waiting outside the country legally and generally they -- estimate it's going to take about eight years to clear those folks out and make sure that opportunity first so that's why they're looking at approximately 13 years to citizenship but in that time they are going to be here on a legal status. a type ofve them temporary work permit that's not so temporary and that will them work through this new system to get a green card. host: joanna in maryland, republican caller. caller: good morning. two issues i'd like to see you address. the first one is, i think we on latinocus too much americans and i'd like you to talk a little bit about folks here, say, from african countries and russians and ukrainians and other

that come over here on student visas or visitors visas overstay.ust they stay here for a long time. i live in suburban maryland and there's a number of of violations that are here. i get worried that we have a tendency to demonize in latin america. and the second issue has to do with latin american countries. doing as a government and is this going to foster of the bill to economic growth in those countries. people come over here for a reason. isn't a whim to risk my life to cross the border. they're coming here for a reason. oftentimes these governments are corrupt. the economy is so poor and there. two elements one is getting those governments to cooperate with us on issues but probably more important what are we doing

growth there,omic in latin american countries, so folks want to stay in their own country. guest: joanna, thanks for the question because you bring up an important issue. i referenced this earlier with our work at the bipartisan policy center but that is an issue we hope to focus on can the unitedow states work with mexico and other sending countries to help infrastructure back home that will afford people the opportunity to stay there and of theirbe part community if they feel like today they have no other choice but to come to the united states to find work so how do you help build the banking infrastructure, the homeowner infrastructure -- in a lot of these countries people don't have titles to their own homes -- so how are their basic trades, not in the economic sense, but how can the united states work with the governments of these countries not necessarily in a financial way,

money to helpng build the infrastructure kind of way, but in a trading of ideas to help establish those pieces that would help build up the economy in the sending countries and make it less pressure for people to have to move north. if you look back to 2001, you with vicenteworked fox on the partnership for prosperity. because september 11 came so signed thatr they agreement, it's a chapter lost in history but they were laying the groundwork for work with for work just like what you're talking about and back when we wrote our original bill, jeff flake, jim kolbe, john mccain effort had a small, we piece in our bill that referenced building off of that that as the hoping bipartisan policy center we can help congress to maybe formulate proposal that's similar that will address exactly the issues that you're talking

about. that you brought up was that not all illegal immigrants are from latin countries and you're absolutely right. the irish population is very happens withhat the undocumented population here in the united states because they actually have tens of of people of irish descent here legally. 50% of the population, estimated currently here undocumented, are visa overstayers so it's not just an issue of securing the fence and building a putting in all of that infrastructure down there which to this debatent but you have to address the matter of these overstays so how monitor how long people have been here and when it's time for them to go home but also how do you afford people arertunities if they contributing to society or receiving education or economy, howto the do you afford them the opportunities to stay rather than put them in a position where they're choosing to stay illegally so we can capitalize entrepreneurial

attitude, i guess we could call it, and try to facilitate that making sure that if people are overstaying for they'res reasons or if not contributing, we know who they are, where they are and that they're going home so you two very important points and thank you for your call. twitter,n laurie on will illegal immigrants who considered card be criminals? guest: this is a complicated issue, what do you do with are here illegally who are working off of somebody else's social security number. for me iseresting that i think somebody is working my social security number. i was trying to get a replacement card and they kept job wase where my first and i named every state that i noned in in the nation and were the state they had on record. i was born in del rio, texas, is a border town and grew up in tucson, arizona, a

so it's possible somebody is working off of my number. what does that mean? working off ofe yes,rs and identity theft, legally it's the same thing but is somebody working off of a asber is the same thing someone taking out credit cards and mortgage under your name and credit?your there are illegal immigrants working under tax i.d. numbers are not stolen social security numbers, not stolen tax i.d. numbers but their own tax i.d. number and when people are here illegally as a green card a socialey can get security number so it's a really good question. aroundone around and about this. there's been several amendments on the senate floor asking exactly how to deal with this. i don't know what the -- i don't think anybody knows what the of undocumented is that are working off of somebody else's number but i think when really gets tricky is somebody's been working here 20 year, let's say somebody's

working here 20 years using my number. they're contributing to my so whenecurity account they're, under current law, when the population is legalized, take thellowed to money out of my social security account they've paid into it. they are due those social benefits if they can prove they made the contribution. they're not taking my contributions but they're they can prove they've been contributing to social security, they are funds.e to get those it's a little secret in there it's law so how do you address that situation, how do you clean those numbers up. huge part of the ongoing debate. host: how would social security know, the administration even know how much these people put in. guest: that's the point. be able to prove it. you have to show your receipts, all yourto have paychecks, showing your receipts saying this is how much i each month. it would be hard to prove but technically they are eligible to

those benefits. host: independent caller from alabama. caller: good morning. a point question and and i have been watching for and, a few, 40 minutes, you know, people calling and thelaining and some of complaints. i myself from mexico, i'm in since 1998. i have been paying my taxes since 2003. i have family with american trying to have been not able and i'm glad congress doing something to help benefit me because i have taxesroviding, paying my family, it'si have tough for me to go back to my

be able country and not to come back because i create my family on this side of the thing, myt another main, what i or my was going to say, is that what we go to our grocery store and our groceries, we paying taxes there. host: let's take that last point. guest: that is an interesting point that's overlooked is that people who are here illegally paying taxes. like the caller was mentioning, tax, you'reg sales paying gas taxes. but a lot of individuals, again, off of ae working fraudulent number or somebody payingnumber, are also income tax, they're paying social security. a lot of people who are here paidng are not getting under the table in cash. i think that's a misperception. majority ofthe vast working at resource and

and goingon sites through the regular payroll process the rest of us are going through so they are paying taxes, income taxes are helping to pay for the school. this is not how the system should work. not going to argue that but i do believe there is misconception that everyone here is taking advantage of the system and not paying into even if they were paid cash under the table, they're paying taxes at the stores, paying taxes on gas. is that enough? yes butd argue no or there is a misconception that people are just taking from the not giving anything back and i don't think that's necessarily an accurate perception of the individuals talking about. host: rebecca tallent, coming up, we'll ask our viewers what religion should play in politics and here's a poll that the pew research center, views of immigrants by religion broken down by protestant, catholics,

et cetera. immigrants today strengthen our burden.or are a white evangelicals, 32% say they 55% say they're a burden on the country. catholics, the numbers are reversed. catholics say, 55% of catholics say they strengthen our country while 37% say they are a burden. what role do organized religious groups play in this debate? player? guest: they absolutely are players and players even more this time around than they have been in the past. there's a group that's organizing around religious interests specifically as it relates to immigration reform idea of compassion for andbrothers and sisters being a compassionate society christ,ing the love of et cetera, as it relates to this issue. interestinghat's about the numbers you put in order, if you're looking at the

catholic population in the today, a large portion of that population is think or hispanic so i that that could affect these numbers. i'm not saying that accounts for of it because the catholic church has been involved in this issue longer than other religious organizations have been. what's not on your chart there, i don't think, because i can't it, is the mormon religion. they've taken a very progressive this in the last few year. you can look at some of our lawmakers and that i think might be affecting their position on this. is mormon.ke lee had positive steps forward on immigration came into office so i think their church's chance could affect where they end up think that being -- the term compassionate one that we're all familiar with but i think out that feeling is playing

in churches around the country and conservative churches, too, but i also think you have to break down the demographics of religions are and they might also even play more of a role in their opinions on this subject. host: rebecca tallent with the bipartisan policy center. thanks for talking to our viewers. appreciate it. guest: thank you very much for having me. host: we are going to take a break and when we return, we'll ask the question, should play a role in politics? >> the sequester will reduce our grants by about 5% which roughly to $22 million or so distributed among

the various licensees and andions that i've described so we have in fact taken about a overall federal funding over the last two years and if the entire federal government had sustained the cuts we'd sustained, the budget be $500 billion smaller than it is now so we feel like significant contribution to deficit retirement of the federal debt within our own context. >> the impact of spending cuts on public television monday night at 8:00 eastern on "the communicators" on c-span 2. journal"ngton continues. host: we want to turn to all of andfor the next 20 minutes get your take on whether or not religion should play a role in politics.

remember, you can also send us a go to twitter.com c-spanwj is our handle. here is the pew forum on religion and public life when it the issue of same-sex marriage. our last guest about religious views on immigration. here it is on gay marriage. unaffiliated people surveyed, 77% favor same-sex marriage. white main line protestants, 55% that's ahe idea, change from 38% back in 2001. catholics, too, 48% now support the idea of same-sex marriage in 2001 only 40% supported the idea. protestants, the number has changed very little over the years. supported the idea,

34% now support it and white evangeggicle protestants, 13% supported in 2001 and the number is 24% in 2013. should religion play a role in politics? in these debates, same-sex marriage, immigration, gun control, we want to get your take on this morning. march 29, a couple of days ago, a new poll from gallop on the most religious u.s. metro areas and our last guest was talking about the mormon church and the role they're playing and their stance on immigration reform, more progressive is what she said. 77% of that population is very religious and then it goes to montgomery, alabama, 64%. jackson, mississippi, 64%. 56%.ngham, alabama, huntsville, alabama, 55%. you can see the list continues

with the most religious u.s. gallupreas according to just put out on march 29, 2013. georgia, anton, independent, you're first on this, paul. what do you think, should a role? play caller: carrollton. no, i don't think they should. i don't think they should play a role because most people when candidates, they say i believe in god but the separation of church and state vote for candidates who say they go to church and what if people don't believe in they're like he might go to church but still do bad things so i don't see why they somebody's a role in decision. host: patricia in lancaster, texas, democratic caller. what do you think? caller: i don't think religious should play a role in politics. i would think you should leave that to the citizens. their idea of how people should live, let that be politics, no.but

host: all right, patricia. the gallup poll also did a in december 2012 on those who with are opposed and support same-sex marriage. the biggest factor for those opposed to same-sex marriage, say religion, bible says it's wrong. when you look deeper into the who favor it, they toe, they're most likely explain their position by saying that it is a matter of equal such things should be left to personal choice of those involved. illinois,ak park, independent caller. hi, charles. caller: good morning. it just strikes me it seems as if we're thinking really, really small when we're answer questions like these. what i mean pie that is it seems of our systemidea of laws, the way it has come isut over time and what it

now, is something that's really being completely antiquated and really we seem to reasonablea replacement method for taking charge of our own lives. it seems as if it's people like gavin newsome and lieutenant governor of california are talking about this. it's an idea that people don't necessarily need to be governed, don't necessarily need to be told what to do and if government could be streamlined to dealing with actual harm, you know, dealing with the adjudication of harm that has taken place or dealing toh the methods of trying prevent future harm from taking place, if they would get out of the business of people's personal lives, people's bedrooms, people's beliefs, then stand some chance of realizing the kind of liberty

this country was founded for uses to discover. theeems as though all over world there's a process going on by which people in power are asked, persituated, shown their power.ng sharing their wealth in a way that makes the whole society healthy. seem to have lost that and aboutknes -- questions refining our ridiculously legal system and expecting that to work is the definition of insanity. leave all that aside and try to nice sunday. host: thank you, charlts. this easter sunday and passover, we're talking about of religion in politics. democratic caller, go ahead.

caller: i believe it should. we're taking god out of too many country isthis falling apart and god made a man and i believe it should be be taken out of schools and everything else. host: aaron, charleston, west virginia, republican caller. what do you think? the religion ought to be separate from politics and the and the laws and regulations ought to be separate views.ople's religious thank you. las vegas,el in independent caller. caller: thank you for your time. i would love to question the validity of the question and i would love to challenge all towers this morning reference one book, one chapter, one verse in the old and new that advocates any -- there is not a single verse. godver, there's faith in

influence politics? absolutely. our founding fathers, to use a examples in the bill of rights, thou should not steal, obviously, part of our judicial system. thou should not kill. obviously part of our judicial system. bear falsenot witness, obviously part of the judicial system. does god play a role? yes, however, please, i beg all viewers this to reference the book, whereapter, the verse religion even exists. it's the greatest hoax that perpetrated upon mankind. host: michael, before you go. take on thomas jefferson using a wall of church and state. grosslythat is also misunderstood. not a single individual with have a sourcean

of morality. let's face it, the source of derived from the holy bible so even thomas jefferson used as a source. now, thomas jefferson is but a and that is his opinion and i will respect his opinion. his opinion was no more valid than my opinion. man that, this is a advocated the clause that said the human beings from continent of africa are only soee cents of a human being how credible can this man's word be? he's obviously an intelligent man. everything he says is not lacking in accuracy but does he walk on water? course not. thomas jefers -- jefferson was a flawed. host: michael, let me ask you about this. the constitution states congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or exerciseng the free thereof. caller: and we never have.

has, through man's vanity, primarily manifested money in our culture, is religion even an it sees its way into our system through this corrupt lobbyists.n as host: all right. jean in lady lake, florida. independent caller. caller: i do want to say that every war or almost every war that we've ever had has to do with religion. we need to get religion out of politics. believe in any religion but i do believe in god. i believe there's one god and opinion and i think the government has to stay out of this. that's all i have to say. thank you. host: jean, do you apply that to iraq?istan and caller: yes, but i don't know how we have control with them about ourlking country here that we need to stay out of religion. everybody has their own religion and everybody has different opinions and i was religious at was ane and then i

atheist or agnostic at one time and then i became an avid believing in god but not in religion. i've gone to many different everybody has something different to say. that's all i have to say. on gunere are polls rights and gun control. from september 2010 and how it down along religious lines. therethat agree that should be protections for gun owners and then there are those who believe in gun control. white protestant, those that surveyed, 62% said to own guns.ight control.d for gun white evangelical protestants, protect the right to own guns, 29% calling for gun control. a look atf you take catholics. 36% agreed with the right to gun owners and 62%

calling for gun control. the unaffiliated, 34% of those agreeliated with religion with the edict of protecting the right to own guns. call for gun control. so those are poll numbers from on religious and gun control as we have this debate and as many of you know, returns nextte week on the floor, senate majority leader harry reid will putting gun legislation and several amendments will be allowed including a vote on the assault weapons ban but it will as part of the base bill. we'll go to robert next in tuscaloosa, alabama. democratic caller. hi, robert. caller: listen, religion is a way of life. you have religious bigots and religious idiots in this country. i believe in god but not in a religion. i don't believe in a human god.

spiritual god. and listen, here's another thing about the immigration thing. know theire don't history. they don't know their people came over here with nothing, people off their land, brought african people and here to build the land -- europeansk think they're originally from here. 300 somenly been here years. most came in the late 1800's so they have removed people from now people are coming in to get the jobs and they're worried so all of us suffer a little bit. host: kevin, parkville, maryland, republican caller. religion should absolutely be separate from the government in every way, shape and form. the reason for this is not only is it because it's in the constitution but all nations that use religion in their governments are culturally backwards. and saudi arabia, for muslim examples but also vatican a christian example.

anygion should not have form in our government because if you think back to the it'sans in massachusetts, always a thought to have everything culturally backwards because when you put religion in to pick a you have certain particular religion and that ultimately leads to the another group.of host: we're talking about whether or not religion should politics, getting your viewpoint on that for the next 10 minutes or so, a little bit less. to bring you other news. here's the front page of the "hartford current" in connecticut. gun rights gain momentum. the newtown effect. in the months since the newtown states areny considering measures to expand gun rights than would increase gun controls. the states in red are those that are looking at expanding gun rights. there's the map. the states in blue are states with stricter gun control. senate will behe

taking up legislation when it returns from the spring recess senator richard bloomenthal on cnn's state of the union this asked about gun control legislation and as many of you know, c-span radio rebroadcasts the sunday talk shows starting at noon eastern time so not in the washington, d.c. area you can also download forfree c-span radio app your smartphone and listen that way. jack in buffalo, new york. independent caller. hi, jack. caller: good morning. i just wanted to expand the if iion a little bit may -- should non-religion play in politics. if you're a nonbeliever, secular label youwhatever choose to put on it, should that play a role in politics because seems to me that's where we've arrived because of the separation of church and state, perspective seems to be playing the role in politics while all of the others are not.

host: what do you think of that? i'm catholic, a tax and spend liberal but social on everyive that's why election cycling i'm struggling with whom to vote for but to ofand the question, because should religion play a role inpology ticks or non-regulars politics, my only conclusion that i can draw is that we should minimize at the governmentfederal and defer a lot of questions to the state because again what to in my estimation is that non-religion is playing the role in politics at the of everything else. host: let me get your take on times dispatch" front page, a histin polls in virginia. essentially split on the issue of gay marriage. calling an anistonnishing change since 2006 state overwhelmingly voted to pass an amendment to the state constitution defining

between one man and one woman. what do you make of this? these: again, i think issues should be left to the state which, if they're not, you have the dilemma of the federal government imposing whichever impose and more 60ently, the last 40, 50, years, you have a nonreligious humanist, whichever label you choose to put on it, view of the federal government imposing that view. again, just these matters, especially these cultural to the, should be left states. host: i'm going to leave it there and get in ken in democratic texas, caller, our last. tim? aller: i'd like to make statement that i don't believe there should be any representation without taxation. all religious organizations are exempt from taxes and should have no role in politics. host: that does it for today's "washington journal." morning back tomorrow

7:00 a.m. eastern time. joining us, will be former were inspector general ae fromportation department 1990 to 1996 talking about the federal aviation administration sequestation and louise rednoski from the "wall journal" will talk about health insurance companies, warning that premiums could because of the affordable care act and james white, tax issues director at accountability office will join us for our segment tor money" talk about the i.r.s. coming up next is our newsmakers presidentth afl-cio richard trumka. the interview took place with earlier this week before a reported deal was made between business and labor leaders on this guest worker program. mr. trumka also talks about other issues including minimum wage.

[captions performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] today's does it for "washington journal." we will be back tomorrow. >> today, newsmakers with trumka and then mayor mia love. statue of rosa parkss